On Friday we decided to pack up and head to Florence for the weekend. It's just under a three hour drive from our house, and the last hour or so is through Tuscany. We went to Florence when we first moved here, but only for a friends going away party. Needless to say, we didn't exactly see a lot on that trip. This time I got a book from the library and planned it out a little better. With the exception of paying way too much for parking (almost $100) and me having an allergic reation to mold and dust, I think the trip was a lot of fun.
We stayed about two blocks from the Duomo, a huge cathedral right in the city center. We were also right beside the Medici Chapel, the leather market, and a delicious doner kebab restraunt. However, my favorite part about our hotel was that the owners had a sweet little baby yellow lab puppy.
This is right above the doors leading into the Duomo. The outside of the church is decorated in green and pink marble slabs, and while I think it's an interesting and odd color combo for a cathedral, the building is quite beautiful.
You have the option of walking to the top of the dome, but we decided to be cheap to only go into the main part. The stained glass windows were absolutely breathtaking and just seeing them was good enough for me.
The dome alone weighs more than all of the people in Florence. (This is a fact that John Ralph told me, so I'm taking it to be true) If you walk to the top of it, you can see amazing views of the town and surrounding areas.
We're not exactly sure what building this is. It wasn't labeled on our map in a way that really told us anything, but it had some cool statues outside.
We did go to Accademia to see the real David, but we weren't allowed to take pictures, so this fake David will just have to do. The real David is huge. I'm talking really really big. It's crazy that sculptors can create something so lifelike out of a huge slab of marble.
Our cool pictures end with Perseus beheading Medusa, but that's not where our trip ends...I haven't even talked out the food we ate.
John Ralph and I are really good at eating together. Instead of each of us getting one big entree and filling up before we can finish, we get lots of smaller dishes and share. Doing this, we're able to try so much more and have really good meals.
On the first night we ate at a place right beside the Medici Chapel. We started off with a bottle of wine, a small salad and an antipasta of cured meat and sun dried tomatoes (a Tuscan classic). We also enjoyed a primi dish of risotto and artichokes. Our main dish was beef braised in more tomato goodness with a side of mashed potatoes. To finish off the meal we had a chocolate souffle with straberry sauce. It was, hands down, one of the best meals we've shared in Italy.
On the second day we had a simple lunch of doner kebab (something we've decided is a traveling "must do"). We met up with some friends that night for a few drinks, and at around 10 o'clock decided it was time for dinner. The restaurant we picked was in between our hotel and the Duomo and actually had a wait, which is not common in Italy. We laughed because they brought us glasses of wine while we waited and were apologetic for the situation...had we been in America we would have been handed a pager and told to "get in line". We started this meal with another cured meat plate, this one paired with olives. Our second dish was ravioli in a cream sauce with black truffle oil. Oh. My. Goodness. So delicious. Our final dish was a florentine bistecca and also didn't disappoint.
Between the sights and the meals, we had a really nice time in Florence. It's good that our schedules are allowing us to do a little more traveling. We have a few more long weekends in February, so we're going to try to go exploring a little more!
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